Take Up Your Mat and Walk: Applying the Metaphor of Walking to the Spiritual Life

This book uses the metaphor of walking to gain insight into the spiritual life. Walking is the most basic movement of the human body. For many people, walking carries no value on its own except to transit between two points. From the spiritual perspective, we can derive many benefits through the act of walking. As a spiritual discipline, walking not only has health benefits but generates different states of well-being that are good for the human soul and spirit. Walking gives us pleasure, joy, happiness, and serenity. Metaphorically speaking, walking gives us a sense that we are on a journey with God. It also helps us to know the importance of engaging our physical bodies in our spirituality. It keeps us attuned to the present moment, cultivates in us a sense of wonder in the natural world, creates an inner space in our cluttered lives, highlights the need for solitude and silence, and gives us the freedom of simplicity that the soul enjoys.

Mark Mah graduated from Regent College in Vancouver, BC. He teaches Church History and Spiritual Formation at Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Being Human: The Desert Way of Spiritual Formation. He lives in Penang, Malaysia, with his wife, Joy.